1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automatic telephone answering and message recording apparatus, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to improvements in such apparatus whereby the effect upon the caller is that of a conversation with a pleasant, courteous human being (rather than that of interrogagion by a machine, which signals the caller to commence speaking by issuing an abrupt, non-human "beep tone"), thus putting the caller at his ease, and eliciting more information than prior art devices, to which callers often refuse to respond.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art includes numerous automatic telephone answering and message recording devices. (See, for instance, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,525,763; 2,816,167; 3,376,390; 3,569,630; and 3,649,762). Some prior art patents relating to automatic telephone answering and message recording devices (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,715,506, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,728,487) refer to the "customer" being able to "carry on a complete conversation with a machine," or to a "conversation . . . of several pre-recorded questions and several answers," but do not disclose any means for simulating conversation with a human called party or telephone receptionist. For instance, both of the immediately above-cited patents employ a "beep tone" or "buzzer" signal to signal the caller to speak after the initial outgoing message has been delivered. Further, both of these patents disclose telephone answering and message recording means in which the time for the caller to record an incoming message is terminated after a predetermined, fixed interval of time; and in which only two outgoing messages, one before the incoming message recording interval and one after the incoming message recording interval are transmitted to the caller. In other words, the telephone answering and message recording means disclosed in both of the immediately previously cited patents provide one and only one incoming message recording interval.